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Star Wars Goes Full Harry Potter With ‘Rise of Skywalker’ Retcons

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Image: A cloned Palpatine from the Star Wars Extended Universe

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a busy movie. Despite capping off a trilogy, it introduces a new villain, a new backstory for the protagonist, half of a retcon for the original villainous force of the sequel trilogy, a returning legacy hero, and two new heroines all in one film, not to mention a number of fetch quest subplots. Even with almost 2 and a half hours of runtime, this breakneck lorebuilding pace leaves it little time to answer all the questions raised by its plot, perhaps the biggest one being how in Mustafar Emperor Sheev Palpatine came back to life. However, seemingly taking a cue from the film’s final beam struggle battle, Disney is now answering all those questions in the most Harry Potter way possible- supplementary material and social media.

While Star Wars is no stranger to extending its universe after the fact through books, they’ve rarely been necessary for understanding key movie plot points. However, new details from the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker novelization seem to be pointing to major revelations hidden in its pages. According to Screen Rant, while the novelization won’t hit store shelves until March 17, LucasFilm’s decision to sell advance copies at Chicago’s C2E2 event means that passages have started cropping up online explaining some integral backstory that didn’t make it into the movie.

First, according to the novelization, the Palpatine in the movie is a clone…kinda. While the film proper explains away his presence in the title crawl, leaving it ambiguous if he survived Return of the Jedi or was just resurrected, a passage from the novelization depicts Kylo Ren learning that Palpatine’s body in the movie is cloned, though his spirit is the same.

“Emperor Palpatine lived, after a fashion, and Kylo could feel in his very bones that this clone body sheltered the Emperor’s actual spirit,” the scene reads.

However, if you’re wondering why Clone-patine looked all fucked up in the movie and was dangling from a goofy GLaDOS arm if he’s not in his post-ROTJ body, or why he still needed Rey if he could just transfer into clone bodies, well, the novelization has an answer for that too.

“The liquid flowing into the living nightmare before him [Kylo] was fighting a losing battle to sustain the Emperor’s putrid flesh…It [the clone body] was an imperfect vessel, though, unable to contain his immense power. It couldn’t last much longer.”

Turns out Palpatine was just too strong for his own good. I have to imagine the catharsis in Anakin’s head seeing Palp hanging from his own shoddy Sith prosthetic.

But the novelization also has a treat for all the Reylos disappointed by how the movie handled Ben and Rey’s relationship. While the two share a silent kiss towards the end of the film before Ben dies, the novelization implies that Ben and Rey’s bond might continue past that moment, and with a more fruitful dialogue. For instance, shortly after Ben dies in the book, a scene depicts him continuing to talk to Rey through the Force:

“A voice came to her through the Force, clear and strong. ‘I will always be with you,’ Ben said. She smiled. Let the truth of it wash over her. ‘No-one’s ever really gone,’ she whispered.”

So, hopefully Ben can do a bit more to atone for himself in the afterlife. Rey’s reference to Luke Skywalker’s line from The Last Jedi is also cute, though I would have liked to have heard it coming from Ben himself, to indicate some kind of forgiveness of Luke on his part.

Unfortunately, not all of the novelization’s reveals are a treat for Reylos. Screen Rant also has another story reporting on passages from the book, titled “Star Wars Confirms Rey & Ben’s kiss WASN’T romantic.”

The basis for the story is the following passage, which explains what’s going through each character’s head during the kiss scene:

“His heart was full as Rey reached for his face, let her fingers linger against his cheek. And then, wonder of wonders, she leaned forward and kissed him. A kiss of gratitude, acknowledgement of their connection, celebration that they’d found each other at last.
But then she drew back, concern on her face. She could feel him growing cold.
Ben smiled at her.
He had given Rey back to the galaxy. It wouldn’t atone for the darkness he’d wrought, but it was what he could do.”

Twitter user @laurameirellesb has also posted the pages with the scene to Twitter, expressing indignance over it.


Personally, I’m not sure this erases the potential of romance between the two, but rather adds texture to the nature of their relationship. The gist here being that Rey wishes she had more of an opportunity to get to know a redeemed Ben over the Kylo she did know. Who knows? Perhaps they can build on their bond more, given that Ben can seemingly still talk to her. Still, the now viral Screen Rant story and the disappointment coming from the Reylo side of the fanbase means that not everyone has such an optimistic read. It is a weird choice- not many people share kisses out of gratitude.

Ultimately, though, it’s difficult for me to get upset about any of these changes, because it’s difficult for me to read them as anything other than suggested interpretations for the film. While I understand the attempt to retcon or further detail controversial plot decisions in light of the movie’s less-than-stellar reviews, which isn’t uncommon for novelizations, that doesn’t make the experience of watching the film any stronger. If these details were important to the story or its meaning, then they would have been included in the movie proper, rendering these revelations little more important than a fun fact, regardless of the expository weight entrusted upon them.


Star Wars is a fictional universe. All that definitively exists is what we see on screen, and then we simply fill in the blanks with our imaginations. Post-hoc changes like word of god tweets or retconned movies, then, come across less like the history lessons they’re meant to be, and more like cutting room floor material or imagination-limiting grabs at either relevance or legitimacy. They also imply authorial ownership over the text that sits at odds with common media theories like “death of the author,” which states that a work belongs as much to the audience as the author, and is open to interpretation beyond what’s intended. If these retcons conflict with audience interpretation, then, they can seem more sour than fun. Even like a lie. No matter what you add to it, Rise of Skywalker will always be a bad movie to me, so suggesting I change my opinion based on connected works that can just as easily fade into obscurity over time can come across a little…shitty.



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